Deeply Unhelpful

The President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has come up with an answer to the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. He said at a meeting of Muslim nations in Malaysia that the way to end the conflict was the "elimination of the Zionist regime".

But even that came with conditions. According to Aljazeera.net, Ahmadinejad said that before destroying Israel "there should be an immediate ceasefire first."

There were rumors that Mel Gibson had notified the Nobel Peace Prize Committee in Oslo that he would be nominating Ahmadinejad for next year's Peace Prize.

All right, I made that Peace Prize thing up, but this is true: British Prime Minister Tony Blair said that the suggestion was "deeply unhelpful" which was modestly less helpful, to my way of thinking, than President Bush's statement in front of an open microphone at the G-8 conference last month that the UN needed to "get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this s***."

Iran has a page on the UN website on which the Iranian Ambassador writes:

"Iran believes deeply in the ideals of the organization and the purposes and principles of its Charter. . . Iran is committed to participate actively in the endeavors of the United Nations to face our common challenges and realize our collective potential."

Hold onto that "believes deeply" and "committed to participate" crap. During his diatribe about Israel in Kuala Lumpur, the Iranian President also called for the dissolution of … the United Nations Security Council.

SIDEBAR

The Voice of America's (which is an arm of the U.S. Government) pronunciation guide tells us the President of Iran's name is pronounced: mah-MOOD ah-mah-dih-nee-ZHAHD

Mullings is a full-service website.

END SIDEBAR

According to the Islamic Republic News Agency (which is an arm of the Iranian Foreign Ministry), Ahmadinejad blamed the Security Council for allowing Israel to exist in the first place and said its "defense of the Zionist regime is so significant that the United Nations Security Council should be sacrificed for the sake of it."

This deeply unhelpful language might have been driven by the UN Security Council adopting, on July 31, Resolution 1696 which, according to the UN website,

"[D]emanded that Iran suspend all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities, including research and development, and gave it one month to do so or face the possibility of economic and diplomatic sanctions."

About which, Ahmadinejad said, "Those who think they can use the language of threats and force against Iran are mistaken … If they don't realise that now, one day they will learn it the hard way."

There is no word out of Oslo as to whether that business about "learning it the hard way" in any way affected Ahmadinejad's Peace Prize campaign. Mel Gibson did not immediately return phone calls from rehab.

Speaking of Mel Gibson, the reports that his blood alcohol level was .12% at the time of his Ahmadinejad-esque outburst means that prior to the mid-1970s in most states he would not even have qualified as being legally drunk. The limit was .15%.

As recently as 1991 the Federal Government only required state limits to be at .10% before dropping it to .08% after that. So blaming it on demon tequila doesn't hold water. Or Triple Sec.

Not to put too fine a point on this, but we haven't heard much out of the two National Guardians of Political Correctness - Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton - on this Gibson thing.

Jackson, of course, gained infamy in 1984 for referring to Jews as "Hymie" and New York as "Hymietown." And, according to 2001 column in the Seattle Times, columnist Edward Alexander wrote of Sharpton:

"[I]t is common knowledge that [Sharpton] incited anti-Jewish violence in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn in 1991 and in Harlem in 1995."

So where are Al and Jesse? Why, they're over in Connecticut helping out on the campaign of Ned Lamont, primary opponent of Sen. Joe Lieberman. See a pattern here?

It is a pattern which is deeply unhelpful.

On the Secret Decoder Ring Page today: Links to most of the quotes above; a continuing opportunity for you to pick out your FAVORITE ALL-TIME MULLINGS; a license plate Mullfoto and a Catchy Caption of the Day for those of you who watch National Geographic Television.